"I can see no grounds to impose visas. I can see no reasons for Moldova, particularly when more than 560,000 our nationals are in the Russian Federation," he said

Igor Dodon

MOSCOW, August 15. /TASS/. There are no grounds for Moldova’s parliament to introduce visas for Russian nationals, the country’s President Igor Dodon said in an interview with Izvestia daily.

"I can see no grounds to impose visas. I can see no reasons for Moldova (to impose visas - TASS), particularly when more than 560,000 our nationals are in the Russian Federation," he said when asked to provide comment on the initiative of the Moldovan parliament, which is under discussion now.

Being an act of provocation with the Russian-Moldovan cooperation’s foes behind it, the move will primarily affect Moldovan citizens, President said.

Earlier Dodon condemned the actions of Moldova's government, which declared Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin persona non-grata on August 2. He said the decision involved the country into an unprecedented diplomatic and geopolitical conflict in the past 25 years. He placed the blame on the ruling Democratic Party, which, according to Dodon, is not interested in the strengthening of ties with Russia.

Rogozin is co-chairman of the Russian Moldovan intergovernmental commission for economic cooperation and Russia’s special representative for Transnistria.

The Transnistrian conflict erupted in March 1992 when initial clashes occurred between Moldovan police and Transnistrian militia near the city of Dubossary, followed by an outbreak of armed hostilities. By the summer, it had developed into a large-scale conflict in Bendery, where about 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands were wounded and ended up as refugees.

The civil war was brought to an end following a peace agreement signed in Moscow in July 1992 and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict zone. Since then, they have been maintaining peace and calm in the region, together with their Moldovan and Transnistrian colleagues, thus allowing Chisinau and Tiraspol to conduct negotiations on settling the conflict regarding the breakaway republic.